Buy heifer calfs now or in-calf heifers in 2 years time!

exercise is the antidote

I have stock on hand at the minute. fr bull calfs included that I bought in the spring. I plan on entering dairy in 2016 if everything goes to plan.

Q: should I sell all stock I have now take a hit on the bull calfs I bought in February, sell the rest, and buy spring born heifers calfs ?

Or

Q: should I hold off! Wait until the last minute and buy in-calf heifers?

If you would like more info, or want to give in-depth advise feel free to pm me.

Miname

id hold tight till 2016, there could be a lot of heifers for sale then.

Muckit

Beef price is low atm and I suspect dairy stock to be slightly over priced with anticipation of next year. Hold tight would be my advice (for what it's worth).

exercise is the antidote

Thanks for your opinion lads!

caseman

Is it your first time to milk or have you parlour in place.

mf240

Would you consider buying third calvers in milk .

No training in of heifers and will milk a lot more.

freedominacup

We bought heifer calves and maidens this spring but we're already in milk. We have thirty freisan cattle that should be finished next spring and they will be converted into as many cows/heifers as possible as they are sold. Then bye bye beef here for the foreseeable future.

Greengrass1

freedominacup wrote: »

We bought heifer calves and maidens this spring but we're already in milk. We have thirty freisan cattle that should be finished next spring and they will be converted into as many cows/heifers as possible as they are sold. Then bye bye beef here for the foreseeable future.

Were felling the pinch this yr for not keeping the bullock s.
Not that it was profitable but just cashflow

exercise is the antidote

mf240 wrote: »

Would you consider buying third calvers in milk .

No training in of heifers and will milk a lot more.

Of course. All depends on quality and price,

keep going

exercise is the antidote wrote: »

I have stock on hand at the minute. fr bull calfs included that I bought in the spring. I plan on entering dairy in 2016 if everything goes to plan.

Q: should I sell all stock I have now take a hit on the bull calfs I bought in February, sell the rest, and buy spring born heifers calfs ?

Or

Q: should I hold off! Wait until the last minute and buy in-calf heifers?

If you would like more info, or want to give in-depth advise feel free to pm me.

Its a gamble the same as any business decision but it related to milk price as stock will tend to follow milk price from now on but not always.the problem is your bucket fed fr bulls are not very marketable at this stage so I would base the decision on value in milking stock and the opportunity to buy them , in other words id be looking at suitable aged stock all the time and buy when I see good value

Milked out

I would buy off farm If at all possible, you can then find out vaccination history etc first hand. If buying calved animals a mix of first and second calvers would be best I'd say as you get youth with a bit of calmness from second calvers In the parlour. Your local vet practice might be worth a call to see if they have any clients who sell stock as those who sell regularly sometimes don't advertise much as they may have decent demand already.

Brown Podzol

Assemble what you need now. As they grow you can offload the beef stock. You can implement your own vaccination programme and inseminate with your own choice. The big gain is the animals will acquire resistance and immunity from the bugs on your own farm and the bugs imported with different batches from different farms. Assembling a herd of calved/incalf animals from different farms is fraught with danger from a disease point of view. Best of luck.

A cow called Daisy

Just on a animal numbers opinion
If you buy (say) 20 calves to rear you would be very lucky to end up milking all 20. Apart from the one that might die, there could be one that won't go in calf, dies calving or is impossible to milk.
As 240 says, i would suggest buying 2nd or 3rd calvers from genuine sorce where there no history of tb/diseases or high cell count and with 4 good/even quarters.
Often thought of doing same myself only wonder how cash flow would work out.

Sometimes calf rearing can be like shearing a sow. A lot of noise and hassle and very little to show at the end of it.

freedominacup

A cow called Daisy wrote: »

Just on a animal numbers opinion
If you buy (say) 20 calves to rear you would be very lucky to end up milking all 20. Apart from the one that might die, there could be one that won't go in calf, dies calving or is impossible to milk.
As 240 says, i would suggest buying 2nd or 3rd calvers from genuine sorce where there no history of tb/diseases or high cell count and with 4 good/even quarters.
Often thought of doing same myself only wonder how cash flow would work out.

Sometimes calf rearing can be like shearing a sow. A lot of noise and hassle and very little to show at the end of it.

Horses for courses. We bought a share of 3&4th calvers when we bought back in. They hit the ground running but three years later there's few of them left whereas the heifers bought at the same time are in their pomp now and really pumping out milk now. Older cows wouldn't have a big premium over culls for someone buying in. Obviously in their own herd they are very valuable and take a lot of replacing.

The calves and heifers we bought this year have slotted in nicely with our own stock of the same age. They'd be a small enough group on their own but they've turned our replacement rate from just slightly more than maintaining numbers to a good increase over the next two years. If you saw the mix em gather em of stock that went out to put them in it would be hard to call it a bad deal.

whelan2

how do you know if buying in calves that some of them are not free martins, at least if buying in calf or calved you know they have the goods

keep going

Heard that the english boys are looking for nzfr/jersey heifers to calve in feb march for 1000 euro straight away